Do more by doing less

I’ve not been feeling it lately. Not sure what the deal is but this week has been difficult to create new work I’m satisfied with, or any at all for that matter. A lot of things just don’t come together or seem lackluster. I even made some portraits and stupidly didn’t set my camera to the X sync for flash so none of the images came out. That’s something I haven’t done in a really long time. On the up side, I can go back and do them again, so its not a total loss. Maybe I’m not inspired, but that doesn’t really feel like the problem. One potential issue is overthinking things, and that could definitely be a little bit of the problem. When things are going well, you just flow and go along for the ride and sometimes when it seems things aren’t flowing right, one tends to be overzealous or force things, and that just doesn’t fly.

Especially when photographing people, I can tend to get impatient. Portraits take time; that’s the main ingredient and at times my patience is lacking. But I recognize this and will try harder by trying less. It reminds me of the film Forgetting Sarah Marshall, where Paul Rudd’s character plays a surf instructor teaching Jason Segal to suff  and admonishing him, “don’t try to surf, don’t do anything, just don’t do it”, he says. He then tells him to jump up from lying on his board but this time when he does it to do less. So Jason just lies there, and Paul says,”Well no, you gotta do more than that.” I think that is the situation going on here.

Copyright Scott Lessing Hubener

Burton Street Community

The Mountain Xpress has put together a great photo essay on a community faced with eminent domain from interstate expansion. I worked with the Xpress on this story, along with a handful of other local photographers, including some from  the ASMP, in bringing this documentation to a reality. The project began three months ago, and in that time photographers and journalists have documented, interviewed and spoken with many residents to learn how they and the neighborhood as a whole would be impacted.

The Burton Street Community is historic and one of the oldest communities in Asheville. Many of the residents have lived there their whole lives and are even the second or third generation in their family to do so. Not all of the proposed interstate plans would have as large an impact on the community, but there are a couple of the  alternatives that would raze several houses and leave a large, ignominious sound wall.  Hopefully our documentation on this community will bring awareness to the rich culture of the neighborhood and its significance to many people.

Copyright Scott Lessing Hubener

Copyright Scott Lessing Hubener

Copyright Scott Lessing Hubener

Copyright Scott Lessing Hubener

Copyright Scott Lessing Hubener

Got back from a weekend in Atlanta. Went by Jackson Fine Art, which was great. I didn’t realized that they were strictly a photography gallery. They have a good mix of classic and contemporary photography. Their current exhibition is of Masao Yamamoto and Masato Seto.

Last week I also started working on a little project for a group show we’re putting on through the ASMP of NC. The title is 30 images in 60 days. The subject matter is up to the photographer. I think the photos need to be of a certain subject or theme, otherwise they’ll be no unity or cohesion, so I decided to photograph meals my family eats. Over the course of 60 days I can photography the food and make some interesting photos. Here are a few I’ve started with.

Copyright Scott Lessing Hubener

Copyright Scott Lessing Hubener

I was going through some old photos. I’m always amazed how much I forget about what I’ve shot. Its really fun to be surprised by shoots that have slipped your mind, or finding a new photo in the bunch. Anyway, I’m going through some of these old photos looking for various portraits. Some of the portraits I’m looking through are from editorial or commercial assignments, some are personal and some are commissioned by clients. In the near future, I will begin offering some workshops on photography, varying from the art of the portrait, to landscape photography, to post work. Nothing concrete yet and no formal announcement, just something coming in the not too distant future, so stay tuned. I’ve been thinking of offering some workshops for awhile now and since I’m working toward my MFA, teaching has become more and more attractive to me and the direction I want to go in.

So here’s an old photo I dug up that I’d forgotten about. There are things I like about it and things I don’t but its just fun to find these “forgotten” photos.

Copyright Scott Lessing Hubener

Copyright Scott Lessing Hubener

I’ve been wanting to include in this series photos illustrating the significance of the land and agriculture. Since its spring, many farmers have been out tilling their soil for planting. This photo is from Tennessee, near Flagpond.

Copyright Scott Lessing Hubener

Copyright Scott Lessing Hubener

Barbara Crane’s Private Views

Barbara Crane’s book Private Views was recently published by Aperture. Its from a series she photographed one summer in the early 1980s in Chicago of people in the crowds of festivals and concerts. It was shot on Polaroid 4×5 film with a Speed Graphic Camera. I really like the tight croppings of body parts. There’s a bit of a similarity to Larry Fink’s Social Graces work, but Crane takes it a step further in that her photos are in color and her sujects even more tightly cropped.